Coaster

I can understand people not wanting to visit Thorpe when it's busy considering how badly they cope on some occasions, however that doesn't mean that they don't want the park to be successful - who would want to visit on the busiest days given the choice?I'm disappointed about Summer Nights being scrapped, and annoyed that they've announced it conveniently after the sale ended!

It may just be coincidence, but I really don't like the way that Alton have seemingly waited until the end of the MAP sale before revealing their ride closures for 2016. I'm still waiting for an answer as to where the January announcement went!

It's great to see Nemesis getting the TLC it deserves, and I'm equally impressed/surprised that the station is having a repaint as well!

It seems a strange decision to remove a classic if it's still popular, but I guess that they don't have any space elsewhere. In an unexpected turn of events it seems I may be visiting AI sometime over half term, looking forward to it!

Maybe where the Coca Cola freeze thing is if that's going? Otherwise probably one of the existing food/drink outlets.

Haha thanks for that, maths isn't exactly my strong point!

You say "simmer down" as if I responded to your post in an aggressive way? To clarify, I would class 2012 as being a good few years ago, I don't think the theming is better than The Swarm's but I think Lost Kingdom looks more aesthetically pleasing from the photos we have seen so far. Then again I'm not a fan of having multiple destruction themes in the same theme park but I've talked about that before.

The Swarm will this year be in its fourth season, Wild Asia in its sixth.

I'd sooner have a rock garden with high quality theming and signage than ghastly painted buildings with cheap vinyl stickers and square vinyl signs! Lost Kingdom might not be "world class" but it certainly looks better themed than anything we have seen in the UK for a good few years IMO.

Now THAT is how you theme an area!

The low throughput is the fundamental flaw but the choice of theme was a strange one IMO - interactive attractions are good and IAC is done to a high standard, but the idea of having a theme park attraction themed to I'm a Celebrity just doesn't work for me (and that's not because I dislike the programme, I quite like it). It didn't seem to have many people queueing for it when I saw it on various occasions last year (apart from when it first opened), though obviously it would have taken quite a while due to the throughput.

I'm surprised that they're not adding VR to it! In fairness it's good to see improvements being made, but it won't change the fact that an attraction like that doesn't work in a theme park environment, that's just my opinion though.

Wouldn't a VR maze would see everyone tripping and stumbling over?

The Big One, Revolution and Steeplechase all struggle in the wind (due to stalling issues on all of them), but I think that Rev and Steeple would have coped if they had been run-in correctly, rather than leaving it until one/two weeks before park opening to start testing. Not that long ago the park used to test rides up to a month in advance to make sure they were ready for opening. Then you have Valhalla, Wild Mouse, Avatar Airbender and Spongebob's Splash Bash all closed, as well as Big Dipper, Grand National and Avalanche all on low capacity (one train, or one on each side in the case of National) with Speedy Pass causing havoc on Nash. Combined with multiple breakdowns on the other rides and reports of it taking over an hour to process people's season passes, it sounds farcical.

I seem to remember there being far less issues last year, there were several breakdowns but not such a huge number of rides closed all day alongside the many other issues that were seemingly present yesterday.

That must be a joke surely?

I wasn't on park today (thankfully), but for those who went out of their way to visit, yes it does matter.

Believe me I know about the many issues BPB faces regarding weather, age of their rides and the fact that they have to manufacture many of the parts in-house. I know that they were unable to test PMBO in the week leading up to park opening due to the wind, but as said it couldn't run today because of the wind anyway.But (to my knowledge) their opening day has never been as bad as this, hence why it is possible that something has changed to cause this.

The bridge was built because the park needed one, not to celebrate their 120th.£15 is a bargain but that is the online price, it's still £30 (normal admission price) on the gate which is costly for a half-open park IMO. If they were advertising it as selected rides open then it would be fine, in fact I think some rides would benefit from a few extra months' TLC and longer to test them before they try opening the whole park.

Seriously? They copied Paultons with "Kobra" but they just spelt it wrong! I wouldn't be surprised if they've got it in for Paultons though, they are making CWOA look rather silly with two new coasters!

In recent years the park has struggled to have everything ready in February, but not as bad as this year. In the past they have managed much better, which leads me to think that maybe they've reduced the maintenance budget?

I have no doubt that they fell behind schedule, so why tell people that all rides will be open? Despite the fact that some of them (Splash Bash) are still half-assembled and undergoing maintenance! I'm not saying that they should have closed the park today due to the closures, that would be ridiculous. I'm suggesting that maybe 13 weeks isn't long enough for them to complete their maintenance schedule, therefore they should open later in the year, or open in February but with "selected rides available." I think that in some cases the rides hadn't been tested enough, which combined with the high winds means that there is risk of them stalling (as PMBO did yesterday during a test run). Not sure why Valhalla was closed though.

I think that's a bit extreme, if they had run PMBO in the wind today they would have ended up with a train full of stranded passengers as it would not make it round the course! However the other closures show that they clearly aren't ready in February and therefore the park shouldn't open, and the fact that they told people that everything would be open is what annoys me.

Agreed, breakdowns are sometimes unavoidable but when a full ride linup is advertised, four rides closed all day is completely unacceptable.

It appears that The Big One, Valhalla, Wild Mouse and Splash Bash are all closed today (granted, PMBO is due to wind so unavoidable), as well as Revolution, Steeplechase and Ice Blast having closed part-way through the day. I'm not sure they should be opening in February claiming that "all rides will be open" when they are clearly not ready to open, maybe they should stay closed until March?